FEATURE:
How Useful Are Kate Bush Song Rankings?
IN THIS PHOTO: Kate Bush in 1980/PHOTO CREDIT: Patrick Lichfield
Inside Spectrum Culture’s Mammoth Undertaking
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YOU have to take your hat off…
PHOTO CREDIT: Brian Aris
to Spectrum Culture, as they are ranking Kate Bush’s 146 songs. Everything that she has recorded as part of her discography, there are always going to be some obvious songs placed quite low. Ones that are B-sides or seen as a bit more filler. I am writing this on 27th September, and they shared their first part. I am prepared that The Kick Inside might have a couple of songs positioned low. Though, in the first six songs, three are from The Kick Inside. Rankings are subjective, but The Kick Inside is one of Bush’s most loved albums. In recent years, it has gained more praise and focus. I concede not all the songs are magnificent, but it was a bit bracing seeing a few ranked right near the bottom. I was especially shocked that L’Amour Looks Something Like You and Them Heavy People are so low. Room for the Life was also very low. I suspect that a couple of Hounds of Love classics will be in the medal positions. It is always challenging, with an artist like Kate Bush, deciding which of her songs are ‘the worse’. In my mind, there are songs that deserve to be in those low slots that are not. Again, it is the opinions of people who are not me, so there is no definitive listing. I do love that her songs are getting this treatment, though I wonder whether song rankings can draw people to her work. Whether they will fuel debate. I hope so. Let’s take a look at what was said about two songs I feel should be in her top fifty – and not languishing right near the bottom of the barrel:
“143. “L’Amour Looks Something Like You” [The Kick Inside, 1978]
Entering with a piano tinkle not unlike that of the better-known “Wuthering Heights,” “L’Amour Looks Something Like You” sports a smooth but undistinguished melody line that’s at its most appealing on the title phrase. Composed in 1977, one of the later-written tracks for Bush’s debut album, The Kick Inside, “L’Amour”’s vocals and instrumentation are comparatively restrained. The song drew little notice amongst contemporary critics of the album; a notable exception was Peter Reilly of Stereo Review, who found the “human” sexuality of the track appealing. But the melody and traveling chord progression evidently had its appeal to fans and fellow musicians; the song was subsequently covered in a jazzy, loungey take by The Aluminum Group for a 2018 tribute album, I Wanna Be Kate, as well as in a slowed-down piano take by Yuri Kono, and by guitarist Shelley Doty.
“L’Amour” finds Bush experimenting with more complex lyrics, with mixed success. “I’m hanging on the Old Goose moon” is a reference to an Indigenous North American term for the full moon that corresponds with the seasonal return of migrating geese. Language like “My eyes were shining on the wine and your aura” and “Sailing down a black reverie/ My heart is thrown to the pebbles and the boatmen” offers vivid, if occasionally opaque, imagery. But the track is also an awkward ode to sexuality, boasting some cringeworthy lines (“I’m dying for you just to touch me/ And feel all the energy rushing right up-a-me”), culminating in “All the time, I find I’m living in that evening/ With that feeling of sticky love inside.” Perhaps consider a shower, Kate? – Valerie Polichar.
141. “Them Heavy People” [The Kick Inside, 1978]
Bush or her handlers felt strongly enough about “Them Heavy People” to release it as a single. However, not strongly enough to put that single out anywhere but Japan.
One of the tracks on The Kick Inside written when she was a teenager, Bush built the song around its chorus. The phrase “rolling the ball” popped into her head one day and she crafted the song soon after on the piano.
Though Bush would later write more successfully about obscure historical figures like Wilhelm Reich, her inclusion of G.I. Gurdjieff feels more like an adolescent quoting Kant than true understanding. The notion here is that Bush is suspended in some sort of dream-like state or not fully conscious, an idea promoted by Gurdjieff, an Armenian/Greek mystic who believed that most ordinary people operate automatically, spiritually unawake. The reference to “heavy people” in Bush’s song isn’t a weight-ist jab, but rather a tribute to the teachers who inspired her to wake up, both mentally and physically.
Meanwhile, the Japanese single featured a Seiko logo. Bush would also appear in commercials for Seiko during the time. Spirituality as a cash-grab.
Even Bush didn’t like the album version much, finding it mechanical and lacking humanity. Superior live versions are available online, including one from the only time she appeared on Saturday Night Live. Oh, and check out this parody version called, “England My Leotard.”
Bush would later say the song feels like a “hymn” whenever she sings it, but the lifeless version found on The Kick Inside is one of her weakest studio songs, one that feels surprisingly lightweight even with so much, um, heavy preternatural awareness. – David Harris”.
I guess Culture Spectrum’s feature will wrap up by the end of the year, as they have a way to go. Whilst rankings lists like this will probably not shift people’ opinions as to which are the best and worse songs – they definitely won’t for me -, I do hope that they lead to discussion. Highlighting lesser songs that are mentioned. I take umbrage at some The Kick Inside classics being so low, but it is their right to place them there.
I am going to follow the lists carefully. My hope is that there are some lesser-discussed tracks that feature highly. I think most lists, when it comes to Kate Bush’s best songs, have the same ones in the top ten. You might feel that is because they are her best songs, but if everyone chooses the same ones, then what is being added?! What I like about Culture Spectrum is the detail they are giving to each song. I am hopefully that a few songs from The Kick Inside will place high. I was shocked to see Violin ranked 142. It is much stronger than that. These lists are subjective, though I am curious what most offer us. If there is not a lot written and similar songs keep cropping up, are we learning anything about Kate Bush and these tracks?! It seems unlikely. Even if their radar is not quite aligned with mine, Culture Spectrum are adding more to the debate than a few dry lines: “To a greater extent than many artists, questions like “Is this good?” and “Does this work?” aren’t necessarily the most interesting ways to consider Bush, and therefore each instalment of the ranking promises to be illuminating”. I might do some other features reacting to their lists. For now, as they have decided on the six-worst Kate Bush songs, I needed to have a say. “Of course, it’s Kate Bush, so it’s a meta metal song full of literary and historical references, corkscrewing chord changes, bizarre yawps and banshee wails. It’s metal by way of King Crimson, Genesis and Roxy Music”. That is what was said about Violin. I feel it warrants a much kinder place in their feature. However, it can leads to discussion among fans. Why Kate Bush’s best tracks are so lauded and important. Why some songs miss the mark. So much to discuss. So many ranking lists are brief and are a little pointless. Even though I do source it a bit, The Guardian’s 2018 singles ranking is too brief and lacks real insight into each tracks. MOJO did a little better but, again, a bit too brief. In terms of their top five, quite similar. This may be something Culture Spectrum do, but they will give more depth to the choices and why they are there. I do hope there are a few surprises higher up. Will Get Out of My House (from 1982’s The Dreaming) make the top ten?! Is Wuthering Heights going to be ahead of Hounds of Love or Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God)?! We shall find out. It is good that there is this exhaustive song rankings with essays for each. I hope that other rankings lists follow suit. Not naming every Kate Bush track but, if they do a top twenty, spending a bit more time with each song. Only then do I think we will truly have useful and constructive rankings. If they are a few words for each song then it is not particularly helpful to anyone. Although I am not thrilled The Kick Inside featured fairly heavily in their list of the six ‘worst’ Kate Bush songs, as they say, they…
HAVE to start somewhere.